3o6 HORSE-RACING IN ENGLAND 



quit his hold. Poor Forester ! he lost, but he 

 lost most honourably. Every experienced groom, 

 we are told, thought it a most extraordinary cir- 

 cumstance. John Watson declared he had 

 never in his life been more surprised by the 

 behaviour of a horse.' There is no record of a 

 match in 1761 between Forester and Elephant, 

 but there is a record of a similar match between 

 the two horses in 1759, B.C., 10 st. each, 500 

 guineas, and this is in all probability the match to 

 which Holcroft (who must have made a mistake, 

 or must have had a mistake made for him by 

 Hazlitt or Whyte, in the date) refers. As for the 

 'dramatic incident,' no mention is made of it in 

 the prosaic records, but something like it, with 

 improvements, which the as yet undeveloped 

 dramatic talent of him who wrote ' The Road to 

 Ruin,' and divers other plays, might suggest, may 

 very well have happened, inasmuch as, notwith- 

 standing ' every experienced groom ' and John 

 Watson, it is not miraculously rare for one horse 

 to ' savage ' another in running a race, as was 

 seen quite recently in the case of Surefoot and the 

 Derby of 1890. 



A.D. 1765 : The celebrated little Gimcrack, 



